thickear Records Store

27th Aug - 25th Sep
3rd of September 6 – 9pm
Open days, 27th August – 25th Sep, Thursday to Saturday, 12 – 6pm

This summer artists' collective thickear are transforming Arebyte gallery into thickear Records Store. Come and browse the most up-to-date recordings, release your own records, see where they chart and walk away with limited edition tapes. No need to bring anything except your personal details - thickear Records Store is a one-stop-swap-shop for exploring current models of currency and exchange.

A recording is a decision made. It is a point of commitment, a final choice that cannot afterwards be undone. Just as with a form signed, a submit button clicked or an email sent, once released there is no turning back. The consequences of the action have been assessed. The course has been deemed correct. There has been a decision to go ahead. But just how is that decision evaluated?

Using performance and participation to examine such evaluations made during contemporary commerce, thickear Records Store considers transactions that are less clear cut than traditional retail exchanges. Without any clear way to establish the value of the personal information we provide in exchange for online goods and services how can we be sure we are getting a fair deal? As our hidden data profiles expand with every purchase might we come to regret current transactions in the future? thickear Records Store is an open space for the discussion of these issues, the practice of thickear and the chance to participate in a live art experiment.

thickear Records Store continues thickear’s series of works interrogating contemporary themes of public transaction through participation, performance, installation and sound. These include Ministry of Measurement (2013), a two week performance/installation within the Barbican Centre where members of the public were asked by bureaucratic staff to measure subjective distances before submitting their data back to “The Ministry" and Pink Sheet Method (2014) which sought to investigate economies of data exchange and consider how transaction is employed to create perceived but oblique value.

Formed in London at the beginning of 2012, artists’ collective thickear have presented at Royal College of Art, V&A, Barbican, FutureEverything Festival, Open Data Institute, Lighthouse, Goldsmiths University, Microsoft NERD Centre - Boston, Music Tech Fest and Yard Theatre.

thickear are Geoff Howse, Jack James, Kevin Logan and Tadeo Sendon.

www.thickear.org